Johan Cruijff ArenA to help India realize Living Lab smart cities

“Our goal is to create an environment where relatively new services will be tested, both in a technical and commercial way, before they find their way to cities. This lowers defect costs both for clients and contractors and creates value for Hyderabad, cities that are part of the Smart City Mission and the rest of India, supportive of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals,” said Sander van Stiphout, Director International Johan Cruijff ArenA.

The Government of India announced its ‘100 Smart Cities Mission’ in 2015 along with a new policy framework to empower state governments, city governments/Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in fast-tracking the modernization of urban infrastructure, urban services promote better opportunities and provide improved quality of life for its citizens through use of state of the art technologies.

The global urbanization trend will be one of the biggest challenges in the next few decades. In the Netherlands, several cities are working on their smart transformation. Amsterdam launched a smart city platform, bundling innovative projects. In 2018, the roof of the Amsterdam Johan Cruijff Arena was covered in solar panels and the energy will be stored in batteries, which significantly contributes to Amsterdam’s ambitions. Together with top Dutch universities, the city is researching self-driving vehicles, mobility management and sustainable energy.

Since 2015, the Johan Cruijff ArenA and neighboring area Amsterdam South East function as a ‘Living Lab’: a hotspot for testing innovations in practice. Innovative concepts and ideas, as well as proven solutions in the field of customer journey, safety, asset management and sustainability, have found their way to stadiums, smart cities and other companies throughout the world. Together with innovative partners, the ArenA and the city of Amsterdam work on realizing relevant services for both stadiums and cities. This has proven a big success. Amongst other things, it has resulted in an impressive energy storage system powered by second-life batteries from used electric vehicles in the stadium and mobility services perfect for smart cities.